“You’ve attended to my bee-wing,* rogue?” I
shouted menacingly. He scrambled to his feet, a
lanky lad, anxious to please a man with stars on his
shoulder.

He beckoned and crossed the field toward a bee-
wing, I following.

In a moment I was in possession of the craft, and
no hand to stay me. I leaped aboard, stood before
the control panel, and worked the levers. The elliptical wings of my craft began to beat the air rapidly,
until they were a blur to my sight; until they made
such deep, roaring buzz that sound of the outside world
was gone entirely.

Exultantly, I strained my eyes out over Cammint.
Empty, no staying hand! Good enough! But wait,
what was that?

Across at the entrance, a harran officer came
running through, waving his arms.

The game was up? No, by God! and I rammed
home the final plunger, and the bee-wing took off
flapping up into the thin air and forward with such
speed that in a matter of seconds Cammint was a dot
of light in the darkness, and the city of Jador was
sprawled in fantastic shadows below.

I went blind, without lights, never knowing when
some similar craft might blunder out of the encircling
darkness full tilt into me.

I set my course for the Royal Palace, and had my
forward needle guns set for any who dared offer me
hindrance.

(* The bee-wing is the airplane of Mars. It is an ancient invention, and the only fuel possible for its operation is radium, rapidly becoming the scarcest of Martian elements. Therefore, the
bee-wing is a highly prized possession of any Martian. — Thomp-
son’s Sociology of the Martian Nations.)